6 Skill Sets You Absolutely Need for Career Advancement

In today’s highly competitive world, simply getting educational qualifications and landing a great job is not enough. You need to keep constantly expanding your skills so you remain one step ahead of the competition. In this way, you can ensure career advancement, get more prestigious projects, better promotions, and with them, higher salaries. You might be required to earn continuing education credits to maintain your degree and license to work. Further, you need to train in various other capabilities that can help you perform well and excel at your job.

Employers Prefer to Hire Candidates with Additional Soft Skills

According to Monster, the worldwide jobs portal, studies conducted on more than 943,000 job postings showed that employers preferred applicants that were trained in soft skills in addition to other academic qualifications. As former Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd explains, “What we see in survey after survey is employers saying qualifications are important but that just as important to us are so-called soft skills, character skills, the ability to get on with different people, to articulate yourself clearly, confidence, grit, self-control. They are saying we are not seeing enough of this in kids coming out of school.” Soft skills are an essential tool for career advancement and to develop that extra edge over your peers.

Getting Qualified in Soft Skills is Easier Than You Think

To attain these additional skills, you don’t need to enroll full-time in a school or academy. All the necessary courses are available online. You only need to sign up for the courses that can help you get ahead at your workplace. Invest in an economical device such as a refurbished laptop and sign up for webinars, coursework, assignment sheets, and even lessons you can download from the internet. Train during after work hours and on weekends. When you’re ready, you can take the exams and earn your certification. Download and print the certificates, and add them to your resume. They will help you in your career advancement efforts.

Basic Soft Skills You Need

1. Ability to Adapt to Changes in the Organization

Companies are constantly growing and evolving entities. For this reason, they prefer to hire workers that can adapt to their expanding requirements. To keep down the costs of employee turnover, company owners may offer training opportunities to existing staff. If you can demonstrate an eagerness to learn or prepare in advance for new positions opening in the organization, that would be a smart career advancement strategy.

2. Ability to Work Efficiently with Team Members

To function efficiently, companies need a well-qualified staff that can work together, collaborate on projects, and assist one another in meeting deadlines. Owners respect workers that can focus on the objectives of the company in place of furthering their own interests. An important soft skill is learning how to lead when needed, be proactive in taking on responsibilities, and deliver on tasks quickly and thoroughly.

4. Ability to Resolve Conflicts

When you’re working with a group of people with varying points of view and unique talents and skills, conflicts and differences in opinion are inevitable. Learn the soft skill of being able to understand the thought processes of each team member. You might also want to learn how to tap into the potential of each member and use it to achieve the company objectives.

5. Ability to Solve Problems

Thinking on your feet so you know how to stay calm in the face of crises is another soft skill you need for career advancement. During the course of the company operations, there will be situations where you have to deal with an irate customer or vendor. Or, perhaps, a breakdown in equipment, financial issues, data breaches, or any other. A valuable employee is one who can help by taking charge of the situation and solve the issues in the shortest time possible. Soon, you’ll become the go-to employee in your company and your bosses will come to rely on you as the one person who can deal with any situation and come out the winner.

6. Ability for Critical Thinking and Situation Appraisal

Critical thinking is the ability to take a step back and view each situation in its entirety, how its outcome will affect the company, and what you can do to use it to your advantage. Critical analytic skills will also help you assess reports and statistics and understand market uptrends and downtrends so you can help in the forming of company policies. This is one soft skill that will help you climb the corporate ladder quickly.

Soft Skills can Help in Career Advancement in Your Chosen Field

Soft skills can help you excel in your current job, and you’ll find that each time you decide to explore better career options and look for more challenging and paying jobs, you have a wider range of options to choose from. Employers are always looking for smart workers that have that grit and determination to succeed. Here’s a final tip. Stay informed about the latest happenings in your field. Understand the upcoming requirements and prepare for them well in advance. Each skill you acquire will keep you ahead of the game and success will always remain well within your reach.

About the Author

Saroj Aggarwal is an expert writer with more than 4 years experience keenly interested in helping people in acing that job interview. She has conducted an extensive study into the business sphere and what does and does not work with candidates looking for jobs. Saroj is also dedicated to understanding the establishment and working of small businesses and enterprises.